Amazon receives a patent for its drone delivery system
The drone market in the US is seeing big wins with a patent being approved for Amazon’s drone delivery system and with testing of beyond line of site taking place through operation PathFinder.
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We have written about positive steps being taken by the FAA this week with a new willingness at looking at beyond line of sight operation. It is nice to see more progress, more openness, to a commercially viable future for drones. CNBC notes:
“Amazon has been awarded a patent which lays out detailed plans about its drone delivery program including how the unmanned aircraft would communicate with each other and navigate the best route on their own – including following a customer to make sure they get their delivery.
The U.S. e-commerce giant has been testing drone flights but up until now, there has been little clear information about how the system could work in practice.
But Amazon’s U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) filing, which it won last week, reveals how it is not simply a case of a drone picking up a parcel then dropping it off.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones, would collect a package from a “handling facility”. It would then fly to the destination. But during this journey, it would communicate with other UAVs in the area to “obtain information used in route planning”, the patent said.
“The UAV may constantly monitor for humans or other animals that may be in the path or planned path of the UAV and modify the navigation of the UAV to avoid those humans or other animals.”
When the drone reaches the delivery point, it will drop of the item in an area where it can “safely approach the ground, or another surface”, meaning it could deliver the parcel on a table or even a chair.”
We are encouraged by these steps and will continue to monitor the situation. Keep coming back to stay up to date on drones, drone delivery, and more.
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